Author Archives: marcrdavis

Quick and Dirty Backup

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QUICK AND DIRTY BACKUP

By Marc R. Davis for World Backup Day 2020

I am a strong proponent of backing up data. Having previously lost YEARS of work and then PAYING to have it recovered from a crashed hard drive leaves permanent scars that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. It occurs to me that not every one of my friends is tech-savvy despite my best efforts. Every year on World Backup Day (March 31st) I remind you all to back up your data. But you may not know how or even care to know – but you still would like to have peace of mind – right?

So for World Backup Day 2020 I decided to whip together a quick and dirty backup program that anyone with a few fingers and a big enough USB stick can use to ensure your most critical data is backed up – if only once and only on this day. Also helps that I (along with the rest of you) have been stuck in COVID-19 quarantine and I had some free time. You’re welcome.

If you already have a backup routine or a favorite program – THIS IS NOT FOR YOU! (But feel free to give it a try – you won’t offend me either way) How do you know if this is for you? If you have to ask – then this is for you.

Download link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1yg8GKCkIJaCdUtUMxg5Q4zfLtM59RnpI

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Salesforce TLS 1.2 changes and Chatter for SharePoint

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Hi Everyone. Wanted to make my customers aware of a security change that Salesforce is beginning to phase-in which will impact the Chatter for SharePoint product. Effective October 25, 2019, Salesforce will remove support for TLS 1.1 protocol encryption (Sandboxes will be updated on September 20, 2019). Chatter for SharePoint versions below 3.1 use TLS 1.1 to communicate with the Salesforce Chatter API. An update will be required to continue using the products after the TLS changes are implemented.

Affected Products:

  • Chatter For SharePoint 2010 (All versions)
  • Chatter for SharePoint 2013/2016/2019 (prior to 3.1)
  • Chatter for SharePoint Online (prior to version 3.1)

Due to limitations in the Microsoft .NET Framework supported by SharePoint 2010 it is not possible to implement TLS 1.2 protocol encryption in this version. The 2010 version of Chatter for SharePoint will stop functioning once Salesforce implements this change. Customers still on SharePoint 2010 are strongly encouraged to migrate to a newer supported version of SharePoint.

Updates for the supported SharePoint On-Premises and Online versions will be available within the next week or so. SharePoint Online customers will receive the update automatically as part of their subscription. OnPrem customers will need to download and deploy the new version before Salesforce implements their change.

For additional information about this change – please see the following article from Salesforce: https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=000321556&type=1&mode=1

If you have any questions feel free to reach out to me. Thank you!

Chatter for SharePoint 3.0 Released!

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Hi Everyone! It’s here – the next major release of Chatter for SharePoint is ready for you! Check out my previous posts for all of the new and updated features.

Just a reminder – existing customers under maintenance should contact me when they are ready to deploy this version so I can issue a new license key to you.

Also – the 3.0 version of Chatter for SharePoint Online is nearly complete and will be released on the platform shortly. Tentatively we are looking at the following dates for the deployment:

Saturday April 13, 2019 -> Upgrade of the SharePoint Online TEST instances to version 3.0

Saturday May 11, 2019 -> Upgrade of the SharePoint Online PROD instances to version 3.0

As always – any questions or concerns please feel free to reach out to me. Thank you!

Chatter for SharePoint 3.0 – Development Update

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Hi Everyone! The wait is nearly over. The next major release of Chatter for SharePoint is only a few weeks away! This is by far the most significant update yet – adding many new features and performance improvements. As mentioned earlier, one of the biggest challenges was updating all of the feed logic to support the newer Chatter API format. All of those changes are now complete and this will lead to even more functionality in the future.

Here are just some of the improvements and changes:

  • Adds support for Chatter REST API versions 32 and higher
  • Adds new Rich Text Editor; disabled by default in version 3.0
  • Adds support for displaying and composing rich-text feed posts and comments
  • Adds support for displaying additional record types: Events, Tasks, Calls
  • Adds support for uploading and displaying multiple files in posts
  • Adds support for uploading an attachment when posting comments
  • Adds user influence details to user-action menus
  • Adds support for using Chrome/Firefox and the user-agent ClickOnce authorizer
  • Adds support for Muted feed and the ability to mute or unmute feed items
  • Adds sort order control to information panel
  • Adds indicators for edited posts and comments
  • Adds feed view counts
  • Up to a 50% performance improvement when loading the web part and performing feed actions
  • Improvements to branding and UI components
  • Following Feed renamed to ‘What I Follow’ to align with Chatter Web UI
  • Updates to feed layout to better align with Chatter Web UI
  • Support for latest versions of Internet Explorer, Edge, Chrome and Firefox browsers
  • Additional improvements to caching and asynchronous page loading
  • Significant application refactoring
  • Fixed missing UI translated resources
  • Improvements to EasySetup and related utilities

And some screenshots – because everyone loves screenshots:

The Feed Web Part

Support for rendering rich-text posts

Support for uploading and displaying multiple attachments

Share/Find options in context-menus in addition to the ribbon

I am targeting to release the on-prem version on or before March 15th. Solution is going through testing and documentation changes now. Subscribers of my SharePoint Online solution will start to see 3.0 in their TEST instance by the end of March.

The on-prem 3.0 release supports SharePoint 2013, 2016 and 2019*. Existing customers under maintenance can upgrade to 3.0 at no charge – but you will need a new license key. Pricing remains the same as the 2.x version for new customers or those not under maintenance. Contact me with any questions or concerns. As always – thank you to my customers who continue to invest in this solution; I truly appreciate it.

*Support for SharePoint 2019 limited to Classic Experience sites only.

New Product Launch: Site Owner Manager for SharePoint

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INTRODUCING SITE OWNER MANAGER FOR SHAREPOINT

THE EASY WAY TO IDENTIFY AND MANAGE SITE OWNERS IN YOUR SHAREPOINT ENVIRONMENTS

Every SharePoint Administrator has struggled with this at one time or another. Hundreds of sites… who is responsible for each site? Who can a user reach out to for questions on content and permissions? Invariably sites get more than one user with full-control permissions – but who among those is really responsible for the site – and how does a user find out who they are and how to contact them?

As an Administrator – wouldn’t it be great to have a dashboard that shows you every site in the farm and who the current owner is? What happens when an owner leaves the company or role – how do you know they are no longer active? And how about contacting all of those site owners to let them know about outages, maintenance and upgrades?

Site Owner Manager solves these problems! I invite you take a look at the solution – It can be setup in minutes and instantly producing results. Download the free 15-day evaluation today! Easily upgradable to the full version buy purchasing a license.

Click here to START MANAGING YOUR SITE OWNERS!

Announcing: Site Owner Manager 2.0 for SharePoint 2013/16/19

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Hi Everyone. For the past year I have seen an uptick in search queries for how to manage Site Owners in SharePoint – which led people to an article and solution I published in the early days of this blog. Obviously this is still a challenge that needs a more robust solution. So I began to research what features and capabilities people were looking for in managing site owners. Everyone I asked were looking some common capabilities – including: a central place to manage site owners; have a site owner be set or selected when the site is provisioned; and identify inactive owners. I think I now have a solution that meets all of these challenges and more.

Announcing Site Owner Manager 2.0 – which will be available shortly for on-prem versions of SharePoint 2013, 2016 and 2019*. Here are some of the key features:

  • Ability to manage all site owners from a single control panel in Farm Administration
  • Site owner information displays automatically at the bottom of the Left Navigation panel (see screenshots below) or can be added to any custom element (DIV, SPAN, etc) in your custom branding; users can easily see and contact their site owner – reducing calls to your admins or helpdesk
  • Solution scans all existing sites and make suggestions for site owners based on the following criteria
    • Suggested owner can be the original creator of the site

      -OR-

    • Suggested owner can be determined based on an analysis of the individual site – taking into account most significant content-authors and/or users with full-control permissions on the site
    • Suggested Owners can be automatically used as Current Owners if no current owner is specified
    • System also keeps Previous Owner information as well as who initiates a change in ownership
    • Identifies orphaned/removed sites and inactive owners automatically
  • Ability to get alerts when Site Owners are changed by other admins
  • Ability to email all active site owners directly from the Farm Administrator console – great for alerting owners to outages, changes and other announcements targeted only to site owners
  • Fast installation and immediately adds value as the tedious process of identifying site owners goes away

Other Benefits

  • Free 15-day evaluation version; limited to the first 5 sites in each web application; activates to full product with license key – no reinstallation necessary
  • Farm license – no per-user or other pesky licensing nonsense. Unlimited sites, web applications and users on a single SharePoint Farm.
  • Access to the developer for any issues or feature requests/improvements

Availability/Pricing

  • The solution is currently being beta tested by several folks while I finish up my own punch-list, documentation and such to get the product ready for launch. Probably looking at sometime in early February 2019.
  • Final pricing has not been determined yet; I expect it to fall in the $500-800 USD range; Paid-support will also be available at $250/yr per farm license
  • What about SharePoint Online? SPO is a very different beast to the on-prem product and presents different challenges. If there is enough interest I will look into it; send me feedback.

Some Screenshots

Screenshot showing the Site Owner control present in the Left-Navigation; Clicking on the user name will open their profile page; Link also supports presence/SIP information

Site Admins can easily update the Site Owner by going to Site Settings and choosing Set/Change Site Owner under Site Administration

Set/Change Site Owner screen

The management tools and settings are contained in Central Administration under System Settings/Farm Management

The Manage Site Owners screen; This is implemented as a standard SharePoint list – which means it has all of the same capabilities – including exporting this data to Excel, setting custom alerts, bulk loading data in Quick Edit mode and more.

Default settings for the Site Owner Manager

Email Site Owners screen; Outbound SMTP needs to be configured in the farm to use this feature

Look for more information on this coming soon. If you are interested in evaluating the product please reach out to me so I can get it into your hands as soon as possible. Thanks!

* SharePoint 2019 support may be limited to Classic Experience sites due to limitations inherent to the newer Modern sites. Final support may change on or before launch.

Enhanced Document Upload 2010 – End of Development Announcement

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Hi Everyone! With the release of SharePoint 2019 this week I am officially ending development on the SharePoint 2010 edition of the Enhanced Document Upload solution. So what does this mean?

  • The 2010 edition will no longer be offered for sale; existing customers will continue to be supported and encouraged to move to a newer and supported version of SharePoint.
  • The final supported version of Enhanced Document Upload 2010 will be 3.1.0.x; No new features will be added to the 2010 codebase – only critical fixes will be released as needed for the next year or so.
  • This does not affect any of the other editions of Enhanced Document Upload; 2013, 2016 and 2019 versions are actively being developed and improved.
  • Support for SharePoint 2019 will be released in version 3.2; a formal announcement on this is forthcoming.

Thank you to all of my EDU2010 customers throughout the years! If you have any questions on this please feel free to reach out to me.

Chatter for SharePoint 2010 – End of Development Announcement

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Hi Everyone! With the release of SharePoint 2019 this week I am officially ending development on the SharePoint 2010 edition of Chatter for SharePoint. So what does this mean?

  • The 2010 edition will no longer be offered for sale; existing customers will continue to be supported and encouraged to move to a newer and supported version of SharePoint.
  • The final supported version of Chatter for SharePoint 2010 will be 2.7.0.x; No new features will be added to the 2010 codebase – only critical fixes will be released as needed for the next year or so.
  • This does not affect any of the other editions of Chatter for SharePoint; 2013, 2016, 2019 and SharePoint Online versions are actively being developed and improved.
  • Support for SharePoint 2019 will be released in version 2.8; a formal announcement on this is forthcoming.
  • The next major release (version 3.0) is still under development and will be released for 2013, 2016, 2019 and SharePoint Online.

Thank you to all of my CFSP2010 customers throughout the years! If you have any questions on this please feel free to reach out to me.

Chatter for SharePoint Development Update

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Hi Everyone! It’s been awhile since my last post – all is well. Wanted to share with you my plans for the next major release of Chatter for SharePoint (on-prem and Online). Version 3.0 development has begun and will likely run through November 2018. Among the improvements for this release will be the ability to edit posts and comments, support for new feed items and most of all support for V32 and higher API calls. The API change is huge as the structure of many elements in Chatter changed from V31 to V32 and higher. Also looking to improve the feed rendering performance with these updates. Look for more details soon as development ramps up!

Chatter for SharePoint Online Launch

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It’s official! Chatter for SharePoint Online launches today – November 15, 2017!

Chatter for SharePoint Online is currently the only commercially available solution for integrating Salesforce Chatter and SharePoint Online. Take it for spin and see how easy it is to make SharePoint social!

Click here to sign up for your free 30-day no-obligation, no-hassle evaluation. If you need help – just email me.